


here it all seems fine ( all in my head )

by youkanstay



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Chromesthesia, Complicated Relationships With A Star, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love With The Stars, Ferris Wheels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lee Minho | Lee Know-centric, Mental Health Issues, Not Graphic But Please Proceed With Caution, OTR as a soundtrack, Poetry, Queerplatonic Relationships, Self-Harm, Sexuality, Shooting Stars, Stars, Synesthesia, Well - Freeform, and healing and the process, but nothing is too graphic it's just a part of life, i know the tags look worrying, kind of, this is basically just me projecting for 20k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 11:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youkanstay/pseuds/youkanstay
Summary: At the edge of the world, in a space out of time, there is a ferris wheel that glitters a gleaming gold in the watery silver moonlight, hanging off the edge of a cliff.It stands higher than your dreams, dipping down lower than your doubts as the wheel turns slowly over the edge, each capsule held by only thin strings of starlight that draw them back to the center shaft.life is a fairytale.
Relationships: Bang Chan & Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Hwang Hyunjin & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Kim Seungmin & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Lee Felix & Lee Minho | Lee Know, Lee Felix/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Lee Minho | Lee Know & Yang Jeongin | I.N, Lee Minho | Lee Know/Everyone
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	here it all seems fine ( all in my head )

**Author's Note:**

> this is a work that touches on sensitive topics and is extremely personal to me in terms of the experience. please read the tags before you proceed and take care of yourself first - this is not intended to trigger anyone, so do let me know if any tags need to be added and stop reading at any point if you feel like this is not for you.
> 
> that being said, the synesthesia experience is enhanced by the music below,  
> soundtrack :  
> ground control by all time low  
> rebel by otr  
> fairy tale by ekali  
> my people by 3racha  
> on the ground by rose  
> drown by ekali  
> you can stay by skz  
> fairy tale by ekali  
> ( admittedly, fairly tale by ekali was on loop the entire time, so i think listening to that would be ideal for the full experience. )

At the edge of the world, in a space out of time, there is a ferris wheel that glitters a gleaming gold in the watery silver moonlight, hanging off the edge of a cliff.

It stands higher than your dreams, dipping down lower than your doubts as the wheel turns slowly over the edge, each capsule held by only thin strings of starlight that draw them back to the center shaft.

It disappears under the burning sun, glimmering only in the night. A true cryptid, surrounded by mystery, but there isn’t a soul on the planet that doesn’t know of its existence.

Murmured whispers speak of the stars and the wishes they grant, the expanse of the wheel tilting the capsules up to see them.

( Tilting the capsules back down to the earth to remind them of their place below it all in this universe. To remind them that asking is perhaps the best and the worst thing you could do in a moment of desperation. )

At the edge of the sky, the universe glimmers in shades of periwinkle and indigo, purples and blues that reflect back in the mundane brown of his eyes.

 _You were born for the stars, Lee Minho,_ he remembers his late grandfather saying to him, holding his hand and tracing the pictures of ferris wheels and golden stars and dreams of happiness carefully.

Minho thinks he asked him something about how he could know that if he couldn’t even see them. His grandfather laughed.

_Sometimes, you want something so badly you’ll do anything for it. My star burned too bright, and my sight paid the price._

Minho is five and he thinks that’s the saddest thing he’s ever heard. Why would he give something up like that? To never see again… He only hopes his grandfather remembers the beauty of the colors he would hear in the songs of people’s voices, the vivid scenery from their lucid dreams personified by their speech.

Minho is five and he is now an older brother and everyone tells him to be proud but all he can see are the closed doors he isn’t allowed in and the soft coos and smiles saved for his new baby brother. His father’s lingering impatience when it comes to him, his mother’s tired retorts as they argue behind closed doors.

This he knows: his parents’ arguments are not his brother’s fault. Perhaps they could be blamed on the time between their beginning and Minho’s, but it’s easier to remember that these arguments only start because of him, spiraling down into something worse soon after.

“If I could wish for anything, I would wish to be an only child,” he tells his grandfather, hugging his arm close. “I don’t want them to forget me.”

He knows that being an only child wouldn’t change a thing. Knows that it would probably only make things worse for him, between all of them.

His grandfather only laughs in the sad way that he does, shaking his head and tapping his grandson’s nose. _He_ knows. What happened between his parents to make them so different from all of his classmates’ parents, other than being Korean when the rest of them have families that have grown up here. He understands his daughter’s pain and does not justify his son in law’s anger.

Minho has to. He loves his grandfather, but their visits to South Korea are fleeting and most of his time is spent watching his father’s parents disrespect his mother. He is five, but he thinks this is something you never forget.

“Those who love you never forget. Not even the little things.”

Minho is ten when his grandfather leaves him for the stars far beyond and thinks he would let the universe swallow him whole if only to get him back. Star-stolen vision or not, he doesn’t care. His grandfather never needed to see to love him. He remembers his words and vows to never forget.

Resents his little brother for getting to say goodbye, even if it was never in either of their hands. It’s his fault after all, for being born first, for having to study, for not being able to fly back.

He is ten and _he just wants his grandfather back._

Minho is ten when he sees the ferris wheel in his dreams, the wheel of everyone’s dreams, when he first convinces his tired father to let him ride it once, to see what it is about the stars that makes them so alluring.

So _selfish_.

Tired is better than angry, and his father thinks a trip might help his grieving kid, not knowing that the grief will be repressed for years to come and that his grey isn’t temporary.

Out of all the things to gain permanence in his life…

Minho is ten and so so unbelievably terrified of the height, of falling. In that capsule, he is not alone, but suffocated by his fear. His breath comes easier up so high, not so heavy anymore. The weight in his chest lifts as he rises to the top.

The glass beneath his feet and all around him, strong as it is, cut and woven from the very fabric of the universe, only amplifies his fear, the sheer height below him an endless abyss. The indigo darkens, pulling on the shadows within the cage that confines him, drawing the darkness out of the glass, leaving behind an artificially fantastical luminescence from the floor below him.

He closes his eyes on the way up, standing stiffly with nothing to hold but the icy edge of the open capsule. The November night stings, icicles that prick his cheeks and his ears, burn his nose. He doesn’t think the cold could ever be more painful.

The night is crystal clear but not a single star hangs near. Minho goes home with more emptiness than his hands can hold, a heavier mind than his weary body can hold. Perhaps the devouts should have been worshipping Atlas instead, for the weight of the world could only be heavier than that of his own, no?

It’s funny how emptiness, despite being a presence of nothing, an absence of something you never knew you wanted, can grow. Expand like the universe, from that small corner of your galaxy, your heart a dimming star, to consume you whole, drawing in everything.

Happiness, I think, is like that too. The presence of happiness itself, is nothing in particular, but an absence of everything else, shrinking as it absorbs a little of the everything else. It’s easy to forget that there are limits to this, easy to think that happiness is endless.

So happiness fades and the emptiness grows, taking advantage of the new room to slither through even the finest cracks.

 _Darkness is the absence of light,_ his grandfather once said, when Minho had been brave enough to ask why he had looked at the stars if he knew of the pain they would bring him. _Those shadows you see are not darkness, but faded light. Stars… There is something pure in their light that we were never meant to understand._

Minho scoffs, staring at the scissors in his hand. How could it ever be worth it? Why would anyone chase something they were never meant to understand? He washes them and wipes his hands on a towel, rolling his sleeves back down to cover his wrists.

Minho is thirteen when darkness consumes his eyes, surrenders its hold on his heart to prey on his mind.

“Why would you mutilate yourself?” His dad spits when he forgets to roll his sleeve down at breakfast, syrup sticky against his palm as he sets the bottle down, stops pouring over his brother’s pancakes. Minho bites his lip, watches his mother’s eyes widen and she grabs his wrist, painfully tight.

His mind clears from the pain.

“I didn’t do anything,” he mutters, yanking his wrist away from her. For a second, he wonders if they will know, if they will figure it out, but the stubborn silence between the three of them lasts barely until the night. He spins an unbelievable tale about test anxiety and accidentally scratching himself while working out.

His parents say they do not believe him, but he knows better when nothing is ever said again.

Ignore your problems, right?

It is not easy to grow accustomed to the pain, but it is easy to let the haze slip over your mind, sink into your bones and draw on your energy, parasite that the will to live is. Perhaps it is easier to hide something that no one is looking for.

After all, why would anyone seek _your_ happiness?

Minho is fourteen and the world is heavy and he dreams of the day time will stop and he will be free of this monotony, if monotony can describe how exhausting the simple things are. He passes his classes. His grades wouldn’t particularly stand out as good or bad, just that same kind of mediocre he seems to find himself falling victim to every single time.

Minho swims, but he is just as mediocre at that too, started too late to do with it what he wants. Competing professionally is out of the question, but he doesn’t let go of it. It’s easier to convince himself that he’s still swimming because he has a chance to defy the odds, but it’s more just a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Isn’t he _pathetic_? No? Yes? Well, he thinks so anyway. Maybe the stars do too, since he rarely sees them these days.

Minho is fourteen when he makes his first friend, he thinks. The past is a little too hazy, but after moving twice (thrice?) he doesn’t think there could have been anyone before them. After all, those ties have never lingered and nothing has felt like a siren song calling him back.

Han Jisung is new to the school and new to the area. He tells the class that he has anxiety and sometimes it gets bad. Minho thinks he’s brave for that—he just ignores his own anxiety in favor of drawing on his hand. Still, Jisung is new and something tugs at Minho’s drowning heart to befriend him.

Jisung is kind and funny and incredibly talented. Minho is quick to learn that being friends with him means that every moment spent together is filled with noise, the pleasant kind of cool noise that blankets his burning skin, like a cool hand against his feverish forehead.

It’s a little like music. Magic.

And there is plenty of that too, for as talented as Jisung is with words, his talent in music rivals it. Minho dabbles in it, messes around with whatever free software he can pirate, since his parents would tell him to stop messing around and focus. It’s not so bad. He isn’t great, but he isn’t terrible either, and well, that’s to be expected, isn’t it? It’s hard to blame Jisung for being good at this thing Minho has dreamed of being when he always has a bright smile and a new marvel of creativity for him. Minho smiles fondly each morning when Jisung tells him about his newest tracks, and a year later, he lets Minho listen to his first track.

_I see._

Minho thinks it’s fitting for someone like Jisung, with all his talent and his big dreams. The song is a masterpiece and he tells Jisung so, watches over his shoulder as his friend uploads it to Soundcloud. It does well, with plenty of listens each day. Minho watches Jisung gain his confidence, watches him grow more sure of himself.

_After reorganising my goals, I'm chasing the mirage again._

Is Jisung Minho’s mirage? Jisung is bright, Minho realizes. Wonders if this is what his grandfather thought of when he reached for that star.

So painfully bright.

Jisung introduces Minho to Seungmin and Jeongin, friends from a vocal class. They’re nice enough, even if Jeongin is a bit standoffish. Seungmin and Jisung get along like fire and gasoline, playing off each other in a way that somehow works, even if they have such contrasting personalities.

Minho thinks he understands Jeongin, and where his place of quiet comes from when he confides in Minho one night that his family situation is far from stable and that he worries for his father’s health, worries that his abusive mother will find them somehow. Minho’s heart hurts for Jeongin, wishes there was more he could do. He offers his support as well as he can, but after finding out Jeongin has confided in Jisung privately as well, he admits that he doesn’t know what to say or how to help. Even Jisung, as eloquent as he is when it comes to his music, agrees solemnly.

They were just kids and the world—Jeongin, really—had handed something heavier than their own pain to carry, and it is no fault of his own.

Until it is.

Minho doesn’t quite know how they put it together but it becomes evidently clear that most of Jeongin’s story isn’t true. The financial issues, possibly, but from the large house he lives in with his dad, his expensive hobbies, expensive international vacations, expensive everything really, and numerous pets along with an older sister who is at his beck and call despite his portrayal of her as a perverted creep—it all starts to fall apart.

He who trusts is a fool, Minho thinks, remembering the kids from his middle school, from the various elementary schools. The longer the friendship lasted, the greater the pain. It was inevitable. Perhaps that is why he has no ties to his childhood other than a house he so desperately still wishes he could call home.

( But the house is not his own and home is a fast fading feeling he chases like a weary traveler discovering wanderlust for the first time. )

Still, Jisung remains. Jisung is a constant and for a second, Minho lets himself believe that some kind of light can be permanent and that this happiness won’t expire.

“Have you heard this song?” Minho asks, holding out his phone. It’s his favorite, from a summer of dreaming of the stars and wondering what life would be like in another universe. A little reminder of how much of an alien he is on this earth. Jisung shakes his head, taking one of the earbuds from Minho, cheek pressed against the table. Minho shakes his head, sliding his hoodie under his friend’s head. “The table is dirty.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, but adjusts the hoodie nonetheless. “It’ll be fine, play the song.”

Minho shrugs, plugging in the earbuds and pressing play. Jisung turns the volume up immediately, always one to believe that the first time you listen to a song, it should drown out all other sounds for the experience. Minho thinks he gets it, even if he likes to tease Jisung about going deaf early on in life for putting that kind of a strain on his eardrums. Immersing yourself in the music is something he’s been doing for far too long now.

He rests his chin in his palms, watching the other students walk past the table. The overcast sky crumbles in slow motion overhead, the clouds bursting into tears right as the beat drops, a future bass melody that leaves him nostalgic and overcome with hiraeth.

Jisung grabs Minho’s hoodie, the two of them scrambling to shove their things into their backpacks and get under the stairs to keep their notes from getting soaked entirely.

Somehow, the earbuds don’t fall out.

( _If you start floating away, hey… )_

The detuned synths are faint hums in his ear, lyrics a friendly reminder of how the universe is on your side. Minho runs a hand through his hair, pushing wet bangs from his eyes as he throws his head back and laughs, grabbing Jisung’s hand and dragging him back out into the rain.

Jisung grins back, bouncing next to Minho, grip around his hand still tight as they laugh to the pain the music takes away.

( _I promise you will be fine, when… )_

The sky grows darker above them as the rain falls faster and heavier, their steps in time with the waves of synth as they run across the back of the campus, the side by the biology buildings near the teacher parking lot that no student goes to because there’s no one there.

( _You’re out in space… )_

“You’re crazy,” Jisung breathes, still grinning happily, hair plastered to his forehead. Minho giggles at it—Jisung’s hair has always been thinner than his own, but it always looks so fluffy when it’s dry that he only notices the difference during times like this when it’s soaked.

( _Don’t you be afraid… )_

“Maybe,” he agrees easily, smirking. “Race you back?”

( _If you start floating away… )_

The soft synth pop has long since faded but Minho thinks the universe might be on his side for once as they take off.

He wins—Jisung hates running.

The earbud falls off right as they start; it’s his fault for thinking they could run alongside each other for too long like that.

Seungmin and Jeongin don’t seem to understand how Minho and Jisung work. Seungmin is convinced that they must be dating, or at the very least, have some sort of feelings for each other. Jeongin is a liar.

“I would ship you two together,” Seungmin offers offhandedly, unbothered by the harsh sun even as he wears a thick hoodie. “I mean, really, you guys aren’t dating?”

Jeongin looks up at this. “You guys are dating? Not surprised.”

“We’re not,” Minho denies simply, going back to his food, but he’s lost his appetite. It’s true, in the sense that they have talked about their sexualities before and no matter what he says, Jeongin openly denies it. Seungmin is harder to read, often agreeing but his actions contradicting the acceptance he claims to have for Minho. Still, Minho would know if Jisung likes him or not. Whether he likes Jisung or not, well, that’s a little harder to tell.

He’s always struggled with understanding why someone stays as long as they, finds himself clingy in the quietest ways. It hurts more this way, but perhaps this pain is something he will embrace for the momentary company. That momentary light in his darkness.

Jisung shakes his head too, denying it, but he stays quiet even as the bell rings, ignoring Minho’s wave as he heads to his next class and Minho, to the library.

He wants to blame Seungmin for this rift between them, for how inaccessible his best friend becomes, but then, Jisung tells him that he’s just been dealing with his mental health lately, and his weak immune system has taken the brunt of it. Minho offers to help him with any work that he might have missed, but Jisung shrugs it off.

It’s not like they’ve ever studied together before. They almost fail chemistry together that year, yet Jisung says nothing about working together. Seungmin passes with a high enough score that he brags about it—he never once offers to help Minho, though he does help Jisung during their vocal evaluations sometimes, when they’re waiting for their turn to be evaluated. Minho doesn’t mind—he’s used to being the person his friends—were they ever his friends?—go to for help with learning something. He thinks this is some kind of twisted karma; after all, he must have done something to deserve it.

He misses talking to Jisung though, but words are hard, and he finds himself talking less altogether, more unsure of himself. Realizes that everything only seemed fine when they were complaining about classes, that there was nothing more to be said outside of that.

He wishes on his first shooting star for something to change. This is his first mistake, turning to the stars when everything goes wrong.

( He will make it again—this is something he will never learn. )

You can be a pessimist at heart, know the outcome, and still hope for an outcome to be in your favor—and when it isn’t, you push that hope into something else. Nothing ever turns out in your favor, and really, it hurts you more to hope than to focus on something new. Still, you can’t stop, not when it’s become a part of your nature. Painful, isn’t it?

Things between them don’t go back to being the same as they were before. Minho is quieter, more reserved, and Jisung opens himself up to Seungmin and Jeongin.

It’s strange to not relate, he thinks, pen cap between his teeth as he traces mindless patterns of mandalas on his knee, through the rips of his jeans. Even when it’s all he’s ever known.

Maybe he should have taken vocal lessons when he was younger instead of whatever he did that he can’t remember.

˚ 

* . 

. ⊹

. ˚ ✧ 

. . · . ✵

˚ ˚ . 🎡 . ˚

Stars self destruct when matter is pushed to its limit. When the internal pressures of nuclear fission run out of fuel, they become unimportant—the star will collapse into itself.

You are not a star.

( Not yet. )

Minho thinks of his grandfather and the star he reached for, all those years ago. Thinks of how that light blinded him. Wonders if he’s been blinded by his own starlight.

It collapses, two years after they meet in that literature class freshman year, Jisung moves back the summer before junior year. He promises to keep in touch, but Minho knows. When he walks down the stairs of Jisung’s apartment complex, gets into his parents car, and drives back home, he knows.

He’s hit his expiration date.

For what it’s worth, they do keep in touch initially. It’s mostly from Minho’s end, since Jisung is busy enrolling in a dual enrollment program to save up for college, and it’s hard since Minho isn’t used to texting someone so often. Isn’t used to having to carry the conversations, especially not with _Jisung._

Their conversations don’t gradually drop off, but it’s sudden, with Jisung claiming to be sleeping early or having to go to work or making some kind of excuse to cut off their momentary contact. Minho wilfully ignores it. He gets that Jisung has been struggling with his mental health—that was literally what his first words to Minho (and their class) were—so Minho gives him the space Jisung has been silently asking for. He tries to send him little reminders that he hasn’t forgotten him, songs that remind him of Jisung or a conversation from the latest book he’s been reading.

Those messages go a day unread, a week read, with no sign of a response.

See, Minho gets it. He just doesn’t want to be the person who isn’t there for someone who seemed to have appeared in his life at the right time. Doesn’t want to lose another relationship with someone.

He spends the summer dreaming of stars that fall away from him, shooting stars in retrograde, and thinks that perhaps his time would be better spent studying them than romanticizing them. After all, if you want something badly enough, you would do anything for it, right?

Some nights, he thinks that the stars pale in comparison to Jisung’s light, to the way he always seemed to shine. An inner sunshine, maybe. But Minho has always dreaded the morning sun.

His worries about Jisung take a backseat as his junior year slams him backwards. Seungmin and Jeongin become an overwhelming presence, one that stifles him and leaves him short of breath while interacting with them. He wants to think it’s not their fault, but the truth is that he’s simply too uncomfortable around them without Jisung around as a buffer, as the bridge between them. He and Seungmin are just too different, think too differently. Jeongin, well, Minho can’t say he wants to get to know him any better, fed up with his lies.

What Minho doesn’t understand is why Jeongin would feel the need to fabricate his life, to romanticize such tragedies and claim them for his own only to live a far more comfortable and harmonious life than Minho himself.

There is no time to complicate the wonders of the human mind when he has his eyes set on the stars, however.

That, he has an absence of Jisung to thank for. Surrounded by his talent, Minho never knew what he wanted to do, who he wanted to be. He simply accepts the mediocre for what it is, questioning his future when he is left alone to ponder it.

His life, strangely—or maybe not so strangely—has this way of falling apart, right as he thinks it’s put together.

Physics.

The science behind matter and energy. The logic behind his dreams of the stars. The foundation of his current anxiety.

He fails the first test—he studies harder. Seeks help. Does his best, despite what people will inevitably say.

He fails the next test—a score even lower than the first. He tries again, reviewing the material, practicing whenever he has free time. He lets it consume him, spends more time in the library with a physics textbook than with Seungmin and Jeongin, talking about Jeongin’s boyfriend.

Yedam, who Minho has heard plenty about. A long distance relationship that started only after Jeongin flew back from Taiwan, after visiting extended family there over the summer. He met Yedam there, liked him, didn’t say a word, and flew back. Yedam confesses to Jeongin by texting him song lyrics from a song Minho vaguely recognizes from one of his old friends’—were they ever really friends though?—constant humming, two weeks after they constantly text each other.

Minho can only remember Jeongin complaining about how being gay was hard enough to hide from his father, now he had to hide his boyfriend too. Can only remember Jeongin’s oddly biting, pointed remarks about sexualities and how the ones to hide were the ones that struggled the most, when he’d convinced them all that he was straight even when Seungmin had come out as bi, Jisung as pan, and Minho as aroace.

Mind you, it’s hardly that simple. Not having to outwardly hide your sexuality does not make your internal struggle any less valid. Doesn’t make it explaining to anyone easier. Not even yourself.

He knows where his remarks are unwelcome; he bites his tongue, forces a smile. He can be happy for his friend without bringing himself into it. Everything doesn’t have to be about you, after all.

See, he doesn’t understand relationships. Doesn’t understand these feelings. Doesn’t have much to say about Jeongin and Yedam, though he is truly happy for both of them.

It’s fair to say that no one understands him. Seungmin and Jeongin are insufferable to be around and it’s impossible to study with their obnoxious laughter. He spends most of his time in the library these days, even the five minutes he can get between classes. He finds himself hungry past 3pm, realizing only when he gets home that he hasn’t eaten. The food is easy enough to stomach, but he also finds that it’s easier to switch up his eating schedule to accommodate his studying.

No one sees these little efforts. His father sees his lackluster grades and sees failure, a lack of effort. Minho thinks if he spoke of effort, he would never stop screaming, so he takes the words, lets them settle around his heart the way they always do, leeches that draw on his lifeline. His mother sees him slacking off, always has the worst timing, and reminds him that he is jeopardizing his future by not studying seriously.

All this, he knows.

Perhaps what is most impactful is watching his little brother, remembering himself at ten, the pain of understanding how truly long life is and how truly short it can feel. In his parents’ eyes, he is their angel and can do no wrong. Minho wonders what it’s like to be carefree like that, to not have to calculate every word and every action like that. To not have to fear his father’s anger snapping and him having to take the brunt of it.

Stupid, he is so

so,

_so,_

_stupid._

His mother spends the week leading up to his birthday complaining about his lack of birthday plans, the lack of friends they’ve heard about. Minho screams hypocrite and swallows his words, wishes he could swallow his tongue.

Wishes he would never speak again.

At 2 am, the physics textbook on his right, a second textbook on his left, a laptop in the middle, three notebooks thrown around him, one in his lap—he can’t see.

October 25.

Strange, isn’t it? 2:35 am. Not quite his birth time, but the date all the same. He doesn’t feel sixteen, not really.

Doesn’t feel much of anything.

He can’t breathe, or perhaps the physics in his head has finally morphed into a physical manifestation of his misunderstandings, swallowing his screams and shoving them back down his throat, forcing him to accept that this is his fault. Everything around him swims, and for a second, he dreams of drowning. Wonders if life is simpler underwater.

His parents find him there, in the middle of the room, with not even an hour’s worth of work done nor prepared for the test, near hysterical. His father tells him to go to bed and wake up early and stop wasting their time. He has never asked his father for anything since the ferris wheel. His mom tells him to go wash his face and finish his work.

He does neither of those things, forcing himself to hold his breath long enough to convince his parents that it’s just momentary stress and that this hasn’t been building up for the best seven years. Tells them he hasn’t been feeling well and convinces his mom to let him stay home from school the next day—or, well, today. All these years of insisting on his perfect attendance record play in his favor and his mom buys it, telling him to go sleep then, and finish the work the next day. His father tells him to do better.

They leave him to his misery, and he closes the hallway door behind him silently, slips into the backyard. The cold cement stings against his feet, digging into them until the cement feels malleable with how numb his feet grow to the cold. He crosses his arms, wishes he had thought to grab a hoodie or chosen to wear pants instead of shorts.

And then he cries. Silent tears, because he’s grown too used to muffling the sound. It’s a habit that won’t leave him, even all alone, out of earshot of anyone. Covers his mouth and forgets to breathe.

The moon winks down at him, outshining the stars he searches so desperately for.

_Happy birthday Minho._

His birthday lunch consists of left overs from the previous day, eaten alone while his mom drops lunch off for his younger brother. His dinner consists of a dry pumpkin cake that he agrees to get only at his mom’s insistence at it being a pathetic birthday overall and cold Chinese takeout that his father complains about to no end.

As if there’s anything to celebrate.

His teachers and classmates are convinced he ditched school to celebrate his birthday, and he lets them believe that. He still feels incredibly unsteady, like the wind outside could blow him over at the right angle. The amount of work he has to make up reminds him of why he always insists on a perfect attendance record.

It takes a week before Seungmin and Jeongin remember him. He doesn’t particularly mind their absence, not until they throw themselves at him and wish him a happy birthday. He doesn’t bother reminding them of the time and effort he put into their gifts—these are things he will do, free of charge, because he feels they must be done. He’s used to it, really.

“It’s the 3rd, right?”

Sixteen days later, an unbearable pain settles in his chest, one that throbs with each breath. Let me forget for a little while, he whispers to the moon. Watches the stars drift further away.

Perhaps the stars were never meant for him. Always out of reach, out of sight. Never out of mind.

Minho is three and four and five and has watched his parents’ marriage shatter, watched them shove it back together come morning, when he is six and when his brother is within earshot. They do not know the things he has heard. He learns from a young age that love doesn’t exist. Not in any way that matters.

Minho is sixteen and thinks that he is incapable of love and that incapacity is what has driven the stars from him.

Truly, he’s never been emotional, per se. He cries when his father hits him, but that’s from the pain and the wet anger that he’s always been plagued by, and even that stops when he turns thirteen, and he’s left with a cold absence of conversation instead. He cries when he loses his grandfather, but perhaps that is the form of grieving that his father forces on him when he realizes he doesn’t understand his son.

Minho is sixteen when he learns that dreams are for the children with stars in their eyes and a universe in their minds, the ones that he envied for their quiet minds and infectious smiles.

His seventeenth birthday is just as (un)memorable, if not worse. His parents insist on buying a house, claiming that Minho should spend time in a family home rather than a rental before he goes to college. He doesn’t have the heart to tell them he doesn’t think he’s going to live till then.

Some things are better left unsaid.

Minho’s seventeenth birthday is a failed statistics test over poor wifi, a stale cheesecake with blueberries and some watered down sugar syrup, and a decent pizza, the best they could do in a new environment like this. He doesn’t mind—he’s stopped caring about birthdays since his mom and brother flew back home for his tenth birthday and didn’t get to say goodbye to her father.

_Your fault, for existing, right?_

Minho is seventeen, and for a month straight, he cries himself to sleep because his mind tells him to and not for the first time, questions what the stars mean to him and if they were ever truly there.

˚ ✺

✵ ·

✧ . . 

· . ✧ 

· * ·

✵ * . 

✵ * ✧ ·

. 🎡 ˚

Minho is fifteen when he meets Seo Changbin.

They’re young and curious and sexuality is merely a question to be answered rather than something concrete that you’ll let define you for far too long.

They change in the same locker rooms together, the question comes up often. Minho has no problems admitting that he has the libido of a rock and a total incapability of being attracted to anything.

This is a lie.

He is so so intensely attracted to the worst people, the fires in his life that he invites to burn down everything he has worked to build, but that is not love, no, and he is too young to think that sex is the answer to the tension between them. Perhaps he is right about the first part, but to tell himself he is incapable of being attracted to anything is a lie, and he isn’t in the business of being in denial.

The truth is somehow, worse, as it makes no sense.

Changbin is a year younger than him and at first, Minho is just overwhelmed with how fast of a swimmer the younger is and how much farther Minho has to go. He’s most often told that people’s first impression of him is intimidating—and he can see why. He doesn’t talk much, squints in the water because he can’t see without his glasses, and more often than not, comes across as way too blunt.

Seo Changbin is charmingly persistent and while Minho is no stranger to charming, Changbin appeals to him in a way that Minho can’t resist.

Sue him, for wanting genuine human connection with the only person who seems to share interests with him.

Still, Changbin is easy to be friends with, even if he is so far in denial about his own sexuality that Minho has to stifle a laugh every time he stares at their teammates’ abs. Minho questions his own, telling Changbin the day that they meet that he thinks he might be panromantic.

This is out of character for Minho—he would never tell anyone anything remotely personal. Ever. He sees no point in that—his struggles are his to bear and no one else should be responsible for them.

Changbin shrugs at this. “Whatever makes the most sense to you, man. I respect it, but I’m about as far from pan as I can get—I’m straight.”

It’s no surprise when Changbin tells him one day that he thinks he might be pansexual. Minho lets the younger hug him and tells him a story about character development. Changbin laughs at this and slaps his arm, hand lingering a little too long.

Changbin is easy, lingering touches, and a strange banter that toes the line of flirting and banter, but Minho doesn’t quite understand it at the time. He plays along, giving as good as he gets. Grows comfortable in a more physical relationship than he’s ever had before.

See, it’s easy to avoid how ambiguous their relationship is, because they are young and Minho is older and he should know better than to push things. So he lets Changbin pull him onto his back, clinging to the younger’s neck as they wade in the water after practice. Lets the younger cling to him, hug him whenever, even compare their abs, because _he really doesn’t know what friendship is supposed to be like._

Jisung is a shooting star and Minho has been too caught up in his hero worship to realize that. Changbin is real and grounded and reminds Minho less of the stars and more of rainbows and the beauty of this world and perhaps that is all Minho has been seeking.

Still, the ambiguity lingers at the back of his mind, and he will only realize it when it’s over. Something about missed trains and fleeting asteroids, he is nothing more than a lost satellite.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Changbin grumbles, clicking his tongue as Minho scrubs his hair roughly, the shampoo foam bubbling all over his hands.

Minho rolls his eyes at the younger. “You never even wash your hair here—you always wait till you get home. This is literally the fastest way to do it.”

Changbin frowns—no, he pouts. “Yeah, but you’ll hurt your hair.”

Minho makes a face, scrunching his nose up. Changbin giggles at this. The younger is oddly fascinated with his hair, always complaining about how unfair it is that the years of chlorine haven’t damaged it.

“I don’t get what it is with you and my hair, but okay,” Minho mutters, continuing to scrub at his hair. “If you care so much, why don’t you do it yourself?”

He doesn’t expect Changbin to take him seriously, to push Minho’s hands down from his hair as gently as he does. He’s shorter than Minho, so it’s easy enough to avoid eye contact as the younger softly runs water over his sudsy hair, standing on his toes to get the shampoo out. His fingers running through Minho’s hair feels nice, and the elder lets him.

It’s only when Changbin cups his face to check and make sure that all the soap is washed out that Minho realizes how closely they’re pressed together, how little they’re wearing, and how oddly intimate this feels for a public shower, with more than thirty people crammed in the storage closet turned temporary shower.

“Your eyelashes are pretty,” Changbin murmurs quietly, biting his lip. He’s quiet for a moment too long, so Minho rolls his eyes.

“Yours are too, trust me, there’s nothing to see in me,” he retorts. Changbin shakes his head, hands falling to his bare shoulders, thumbs tracing circles into the sore muscles.

Eye contact has always been overwhelming, but this is a gaze that Minho wants to break for reasons not having to do with his discomfort. Changbin is easily the most comfortable person he’s met in a while, but there is something overwhelming about everything.

Minho closes his eyes and the world falls away.

Minho is sixteen, but barely so, just about ready to say goodbye to a number that was supposed to mean something but failed to, when the truths of his life are uprooted. Tilted on their axes and thrown out of orbit.

He stares at his phone, unable to look away from the words, unable to process what he is seeing.

Changbin has never been the best with words, never been one to play with metaphors and the misery of vague descriptions. Minho has never hated this more about him.

_Ok I know this is probably really weird for you, but when I first met you I kinda had a crush on you, which is kinda how I figured out I liked boys as more than just like friends. Because like, let’s be honest here, you are a full course meal._

He blinks, once, twice, and oh, it’s blurry. There’s more after, something about Changbin justifying his feelings and talking about how this was two years ago, but that’s somehow worse, because they’ve only known each other for a _year._

He’s crying. And it hurts, it really does because he isn’t easy to love and Changbin never says anything about love but all Minho can think of is the what ifs.

You’re sorry, but what for? You can’t help who you love, and perhaps neither of you should apologize, but the pain of a broken heart still lingers—and it is your own.

He loves Changbin, but not in the way the younger saw—sees?—him, and he thinks that the world’s most beautiful desires will continue to be thrown at him out of spite.

_I’m sorry._

He texts the younger late at night when the summer sun is still too high and the heat won’t dissipate, when he dreams of an endless sleep where he’ll wake up to the end of summer, or perhaps never again. He doesn’t think he would mind either at this point. Apologizes for who he is and maybe who he’s convinced himself he is.

_I wish I could be someone worthy of your love._

He’s dramatic. Thinks of Jisung and his bright smiles and exaggerated gestures for the first time in a while. Wonders if he’s okay.

He texts Jisung, seeing that all of his previous messages have been seen by the other. Minho hopes that Jisung is okay, and that even if he hasn’t been in a place to respond these past few months, that he knows he’s there for him.

That’s a lie.

Minho is selfish. He knows that Jisung is struggling, but he is equally frustrated with the radio silence. He needs something, anything to tell him that his efforts aren’t in vain, that there is still a point to their relationship. He is selfish for wanting Jisung to text back when a single text is pointless, in the grand scheme of things and Jisung’s mental health comes first.

He just wants to be heard.

The universe is far from kind, and the stars have long since lost their light as he stays up too late into the night. Bruises smudged under his eyes, covered by the same hair Changbin always fawned over, and worn down nails from the fidgeting and the quiet.

The universe is sadistic, taking pleasure in the pain of those that love it, tormenting their little unrequited love for personal enjoyment.

_I was thinking of taking the test to get my diploma early next year._

Minho spirals too easily these days. He can’t blame the younger for being honest about it, but there is still a part of him that wishes he had never said anything.

But that’s not fair to him either—Changbin is just as entitled to his feelings, if not more, for the anxiety that plagues him for confessing that he thinks he’s going to lose Minho for liking him. This is far from the truth, Minho doesn’t think those feelings affect their relationship, as harsh as that sounds. And he needs to show the younger that he is there for him, and if that means setting aside the overwhelming white noise that fills him at the sight of a new notification, a little stardrop pinging in the quiet he can no longer stand, then that is what he will do.

He wishes the younger the best of luck with his endeavors, and perhaps it is a goodbye of some kind, as he shares his advice from his own mistakes. High school is a drop in this endless ocean of life, but he thinks these past three years have only taught him that you can drown, even in such a tiny drop.

It means nothing to him, these words that he types out so easily. Forget about me, is what he truly wants to say, but he thinks it’s conceited to make this about him when the younger is opening up to him.

They talk less after that, drifting as circumstances change and they stop seeing each other regularly at the pool. It’s natural, and neither of them really reach out too much. Minho’s anxiety both loves and hates it, but he’s spent his entire life shoving it back into place, so he ignores it.

He tries. Some things are easier said than done.

There are words he can never forget, a meaning that he can never unsee. He’s always been a little too good at understanding people, despite being such a supposed enigma to others.

You’re not really hard to understand—they just don’t bother trying. But after all, if you can’t understand yourself, how can you expect others to understand you?

Minho locks his phone, setting it on the pillow he’s sitting on and leans back, falling back onto the bed. The sudden movement knocks the breath out of his lungs. It’s all too familiar these days.

_So I can graduate with you._

* ✵ . . ˚ . ˚ 

. ⊹

. ˚ ✧ 

. . · . ✵

˚ ˚ . 🎡 . ˚

Minho is seventeen and his parents’ clashing voices are the ticking of the clock, a reminder that he’s living on borrowed time and that he owes it to the stars that he’s stolen them from to atone.

The razor stings but somehow, the pain is less than the pain of the blade of those scissors so long ago. He is no stranger to blood, clumsy thing that he is, and it is a foreign sense of hurt that plagues him as he washes the blood off his thigh, showers, and waits for it to stop bleeding.

Your mind is, perhaps, the scariest place of all. You can be entirely aware, a sense of hyper self awareness, that what you are doing is wrong, is bad, in the moral sense, but perhaps you will do it anyway, and that is something you can not reason yourself out of.

It doesn’t even hurt as much as it should, which speaks of his pain tolerance and how far he has come from being a child who would tear up over the pain of the rubbing alcohol. Actually, he doesn’t cry at all, a far cry from the boy who couldn’t stop only a week ago.

He just wants it to scar, a reminder of what he has endured. A reminder that—no matter how much he hates it—he is still alive.

Purpose, you will find, evades you when you desire it most. A fickle little spirit, a whisper in the wind, and then you’ll spiral down a rabbit whole of what-ifs for the next century. Purpose is not your guiding arrow.

Your true north does not exist.

And it shouldn’t, really. Do not mistake morality for passion, nor actions for intentions. Minho knows better than to make that mistake again.

Sometimes he thinks about _him_ , the reason Minho can never forget the pain that swimming brings—brought—him, the reason he knows he is incapable of love. He knows this is wrong—it is far from Changbin’s fault that the only coping mechanisms he turns to are unhealthy and self destructive.

Instead, he finds comfort in music.

This is not new.

The overwhelming colors and vivid imagery that floods his vision as the beat drops and the detuned synth waves wash over him is nothing like the chromesthesia of his past, and the soft bass resonates with his heartbeat faster than he thinks it should.

It is February 15 and the universe is a little room with periwinkle walls that are more blue than purple and the only light in it is from the screen of a laptop and the stars are the twinkling led lights that line the baseboard and wind around the room.

_( In my head, we were set, epitome of happiness )_

He thinks of Jisung as he turns the volume up, but the music drowns everything out before he can let those thoughts spiral.

_( But my heart is a rebel )_

You are a rogue satellite, drifting beyond your orbit—perhaps you never had one—and the stars are singing, sweet siren songs that call your name, twist your story with their spindly fingers. You are a number, or perhaps six, and that is what the people call you, your star-name, but you do not feel celestial.

_( Thought I was bigger than your dreams )_

Pain is simple. The way his thigh stings as the flannel of his pants brushes against it is simple. The temporary sting of ripping a bandage off is simple.

_( I was foolish, I can see )_

Minho is seventeen and the world is too small, and his heart is too big. Words are tangible—to think something is to want it enough to put those feelings to words. He is full of thoughts that he has saved, songs that he will never sing.

_( That I was never on your level )_

The refrain opens with the gentle lilt of water, and perhaps that’s where it starts, but perhaps this has simply been a long time coming. He doesn’t realize he’s leaning forward until his nose is pressed against the cold glass, hands shaking as he flattens his palms against the window.

_( My heart is a rebel )_

It’s not raining yet, but the telltale signs of a storm are all there. The dark, overcast skies, the 3am clouds and the wind that wails in his ears, an agonizing anthem of misery dedicated to the lost.

_( Don't speak in my dreams tonight )_

The horizon draws closer. He dreams of falling off the edge of the world and flying, of ferris wheels and broken stardust, silver promises gilded in gold. The water returns, and with it, the build up to the chorus. Soft synth and even the wind quiets to listen.

_( Shoot me and watch the highlights )_

The universe is a peculiar thing, sadistic as it is, still taking pleasure in the beauty of simplicities. The wind caresses the skies’ cheeks, gentle and fleeting. The clouds can not help but cry.

It’s only when Minho leans away from the glass that the rain is perhaps his own and the tears of the sky are empathetic ones.

_( I got a limit on the love that I can give. )_

* . · ✧ 

✷ . ✵ + ˚ 

✵ .

· ✺ ✷ . ✫

· · .

· · ✹ ✵ . ✵ ✵

* ✦ · 🎡 · ˚

That night, he dreams of a ferris wheel, of endless heights and the frigid temperatures but the cold has never been more welcoming. His muscles still throb from a workout, but somehow, he knows that reality could never shine so bright.

He wonders why this is such a significant memory, why he can’t seem to let go of the stars, even when he knows that space isn’t his home.

You are built to survive, and to survive is to persevere. Memories are to preserve, to internalize the negative to overcome it. That is normal—you are not to blame for the pain the universe gives you. Please never forget this: you are only to blame if the actions and intentions were yours alone. If not, then either both of you are to blame, or neither of you are. And with pain, you are never to blame—only responsible for how you treat yourself for what you have endured.

Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned on how to treat ourselves better.

He’s surrounded by the capsules, belatedly realizing that he is standing in one himself. The glass feels real, even if he knows it isn’t.

Lucid.

You would wish to dance, if only to join the stars, twinkling and twirling at the speed of light, too bright for the lingering eyes to miss your beauty.

Minho dreams of love, fleeting and bright, a contradiction from everything he has ever held in his sight.

He gets into almost all of the colleges he applies to. Eight out of twelve. This is more than he expects, but he takes it in stride.

Oddly enough, acceptance letters and rejection emails alike have no impact on him. They float past him and for once, his emotions are unwavering.

When you are numb, even the slightest feeling can be out of place, right? Perhaps it is easier to not feel anything at all.

He picks the best one from the list, succumbing to the mentality that the highest ranking is the best choice. It isn’t—high school is a constant reminder of this.

Why he thinks this mistake of all of them will be worth making again, he doesn’t know.

College is blue, everything swimming in that familiar uncertainty. His mind is a softer version of the deeper color, floating in familiarity.

He is eighteen and there is a tattoo on his shoulder, the pain of the needles numbed by how densitized he is to needles in the first place. A red spider lily, a reminder of the memories he has killed to get where he is, to stay alive.

The music echoes, resonating somewhere between the gray and the blue but it is the safest he has felt in years. It is the closest he will get to being okay for a while.

He is eighteen and he makes a promise with a reaper, sells his soul for green, for emerald, for the light that shines within all these people, the evergreen glow of their smiles and halos.

Life is a glimpse into the universe but he decides that this universe will never love him the way he loves the stars.

He doesn’t mind. Nineteen is a good number. An odd number. Nothing special, no meaning tied to it. The reaper will wait, this he knows. The colors have yet to fade, and perhaps this is simply because he is too much of a coward to purge them.

But the universe is pulling the strings and the stars have settled in for a show.

A show it will be.

There is no blood and no pain, but he dreams of irony; the swimmer who drowns. His mind is a desert and death is an oasis that will evade him.

He’s found a new mirage.

Jisung—and Seungmin and Jeongin and even Changbin, for that matter—are rarely on his mind. Remembering is hard, even when he remembers that remembering pain is a defense mechanism.

Is forgetting his mind’s way of giving up?

Insane. He is insane and it is 3 am and he is standing in front of a ferris wheel that he can’t even remember anymore, not the spindly stardust nor the crystal capsules. A welcome sense of unfamiliarity, in the physical sense, even if his mind is drowned in the yellow that is his father, that luring false sense of security that explodes too brightly to do anything but burn, in that gold that is the gilded anger of the universe, that silver tongued celestial yellow.

Minho doesn’t remember walking to the ferris wheel, nor getting in the capsule, but he stands at the top and then he clumps further, balancing precariously at the edge of the railing, his acrophobia liberating, rather than paralyzing as it normally would be.

“Do you see me now?” He screams—whispers—to the sparkles above him. “Can you hear me?”

Minho has always thought that the colors that haunt him have always been the brightest the further he has looked. He is colorless, a shadow of someone who once dared to dream a little too long. Perhaps this is the fate he has resigned himself to, even if he does not believe anything is predestined.

It would be too cruel, to think that the universe planned out every tragedy and timed it so perfectly that you would only spiral further and further from the pain.

Still, it’s a miracle he’s lived this long. Why bother with the colors, why bother hearing them, tasting them, and feeling them, if he can never truly _see_ them?

The synth builds up once more, even if he doesn’t remember turning the music on. He doesn’t remember much these days, and what he does is nonsense, blurred colors that contort to fill his vision and cloud his mind.

_Life is a fairy tale._

The guitar and bass blur together, individual beats to the music of his heart. The synthesizer rises, swoop, soaring higher and higher. Will that be his fate?

 _Till I’m praying for safety_ —

He stands at the top of the ferris wheel, at the top of the topmost capsule, at the top of the end of the world. Invincibility is far from a concept he believes in, but he thinks it would feel a little like this. Like tempting the miserable universe to see the fruits of its labor, commanding the stars to notice him.

— _screaming_

He doesn’t close his eyes, wants to see the indigo and iridescent one last time as he looks to the sky. He leans back, arms spread wide, cold wind even colder against his rain stained cheeks.

_Life is a fairy tale._

The beat drops suddenly, but it is still gentle. Silver tones and the warmth of amber, so different from the yellow he can’t stand. He falls into the silver spills from every corner of the universe but it is gold that commands his vision, a pale gold that falls from the sky, a boy with hair that shines just as bright.

_Life is a fairy tale._

He flies.

✧ . · . 

· ✫ ✷ . ✧ 

. . ✦ * . · 

✧ 🎡 · ·

✦ . · 

✵ . * ✵ .

✵

Time stops, but not in the way you expect it to. You’re still alive.

Minho blinks twice, staring at those shimmering brown eyes curiously. It’s too dark for the stars—or even the moon—to be bright enough to make them shine like that. Is this the after?

“Are you a star?”

His nose scrunches up as he laughs and Minho is enchanted. Perhaps beauty is beyond him. “What else would I be?”

October 25. 00:19. A star falls from the sky and a soul flies to meet it.

Felix is an enigma. Not in the traditional sense, no, he doesn’t shroud himself in shadows of mystery—Minho thinks his light is far too bright for that—but he _is_ the unknown.

To be honest, he doesn’t think it’s possible to mistake that light in him for anything else. Felix is stardew and silvery fairydust and magic and all the shimmery things in between. Constellations paint his cheeks and Minho thinks he would learn the names of every single star in his universe.

Minho is gray.

“Do you dream easily?” Felix asks, sheets wrapped around his bare shoulders, obscuring the constellations that adorn them. Minho looks back at his laptop, telling himself that he can take a break if he can just push through this last set of assignments.

It never works anyway. “Easily enough.”

Felix hums, shifting closer to look over his shoulder. “What do you dream of?”

You dream of death but you are an insomniac and the dreams only come with the sleep that evades you.

“A ferris wheel,” Minho deadpans, frowning at the screen. The words swirl, eyes staring but not seeing. Felix shifts slightly, sitting perpendicularly to him and pressing a finger between his brows, smoothing the stressed crease.

His finger is warm against Minho’s clammy skin.

“You never talk about them,” he murmurs, fingers trailing down to tuck Minho’s hair behind his ears. It’s grown a little longer lately, but he thinks he could be Rapunzel if only he would continue to play with it.

Minho shrugs, the movement jostling Felix and drawing him closer by accident. “I have clothes you could wear if you’re cold,” he says instead. Evading, always evading. He is an escape artist, silvertongue guiding him through these words that bend and seek to trap him. “I doubt that sheet is all that comfortable.”

“I am not cold,” Felix muses, sliding the sheet off his shoulders. “Warmth is an illusion. You are warm, but you do not like it.”

“I hate the heat,” he mutters, not looking at the other, now sitting shirtless on his bed. An (un)welcome distraction. “It reminds me of summer.”

Felix shrugs. “But you can see the stars in the summer?”

“You can see them in the winter too,” Minho points out, finally looking up from his laptop. “You can see them if you close your eyes hard enough. Just stars. Everything’s… starry.”

There are stars in your eyes, the entire universe in disguise, but you are not unkind. This, you do not understand.

_Why?_

You do not want pity, but you have been taught to accept what you are given. The universe is unkind, but as a fact, this is the truth. The people who do not understand believe themselves to be the truth, but we are all guilty of that, aren’t we? Perhaps it is to accept not what you are given but what you will, that will take you farther.

Felix is gentle, always so incredibly gentle. He draws Minho closer, an arm around his waist and the other around his shoulders as he pulls Minho to him. He cradles the back of Minho’s head, like there is something precious there.

Minho lets him. He is freezing and Felix is the sun, the warmth that will burn him alive, bring him back to life. He presses his nose to his collarbone and settles his arms around the younger’s back, right hand resting between his shoulder blades and left hand at the small of his back. His skin is soft and if Minho were in a better state of mind, he would be more flustered by Felix’s current state of undress.

Felix leans back, pulling Minho to rest on his torso, the warmth seeping in through even his coldest entities, the fingertips that never get warm, the knuckles that are as good as frozen. He thinks he’s too touchstared to care as he presses his cheek against Felix’s torso.

“You’re warm,” he murmurs, eyelashes wet as they blink against the delicate skin under his eyes. “Can we stay like this forever?”

Felix laughs lightly, Minho rises with the motion of his chest. “You are too.” He is quiet for a moment too long, hands reaching up to card through Minho’s tangled hair, the faintest hint of red peaking through the brown in the sunlight.

Then, too quietly for Minho to hear: “You’re the warmest person I’ve ever met.”

_Can we stay like this forever?_

It rains that night and Minho is a part of their storm, a little thundercloud that never bursts with lightning.

He’s always hated the color yellow.

˚ · * 

. · . . * . * .

· *

. * 🎡 

✺ . ✺

Felix sets a cup of tea in front of him, the scent of lavender fragrant amidst the petrichor they are surrounded by. “Why neuroscience?”

Minho takes the cup, blinks twice. “Why did I choose to major in it, you mean?”

Felix nods. “Yeah. Why neuroscience? Why music? Why do you keep trying to learn new languages?” There’s more he wants to say, but for some reason, he holds back. Minho doesn’t mind, nor does he push. The three questions are more than enough for him to puzzle out.

“I want to remember,” he says, finally, staring down at his cup and wondering when he drank almost half of it.

_Because I don’t deserve to forget._

“To preserve those memories,” he adds on when Felix is still silent. “Music because well, synesthesia.”

Felix tilts his head curiously, eyes starry in the dimly lit cafe. “Synesthesia?”

“My senses blur together,” Minho explains quietly, voice soft. “I can see, taste, and feel the music. Voices and people too, sometimes. It’s weird and mine is definitely not the most common kind.”

Felix hums to show that he’s listening, though Minho doesn’t know how else his intense gaze could be interpreted. “Is that why you’re so empathetic?”

This catches him off guard. He looks up from his notebook, staring at Felix. Felix, with his sharp jawline held up by a gentle hand, not that much smaller than his own. Felix, with moonlight in his hair and stardust in his eyes. Felix, who glows even in the dark light of the cafe, against the black walls. Felix, who looks at him like listening to him is worth something.

“Am I?” He stretches the syllables out, each word slow and careful, yet careless at the same time, with reckless abandon. “I don’t think so.”

When you stop feeling things, it’s hard to tell which emotions are your own. Overwhelming, but sometimes the colors are nice.

Felix stares at him, unblinking. “You really don’t see it?”

Minho shakes his head slowly. “No? And the language thing, I guess I just thought that the more languages I know, the more likely it is for me to find a word to describe something.”

Something in Felix’s gaze shifts, sharpens. “Like to describe a color?” It’s a challenge, but not one that Minho understands.

He shrugs. “Color? Sure, I guess.”

“That’s not what you were thinking of though,” Felix points out, stealing a sip of Minho’s tea, licking his lips. The gloss doesn’t even smudge. Minho looks up again.

“Not really,” he agrees. “Colors make sense too though.”

“What were you thinking of?” Felix won’t let it go, and Minho can’t understand why.

Why would anyone want to listen to you? What is it about your words that deters them?

“Feelings,” he mutters. “It’s easier to find words to describe what you feel. Happy?”

Felix hums again, noncommittally. “Sure, but you aren’t.”

He isn’t. This is true. Minho sighs, closing his eyes and resting his face in his hands. “What do you want me to say?” The words come out flat, muffled by his palms. “I’m not. Is that it?”

“I take no pleasure from your pain.”

But you’re a star, Minho thinks. You are part of the very universe that thrives on my suffering, his mind reminds him.

This is not true. Felix is the sun, the gems that shine even in the dark.

( For the sun is in the dark, it simply shines too bright for people to not notice. That, and it is the source of the creation of life. )

It is fitting that the source of his life reminds him of the ultimate source of life.

“Was it lonely?” Minho asks, cupping his hands around the mug for the sake of it, to keep from ripping off his nail and fidgeting.

Felix tilts his head, the barest cafe light catching on the gem below his eye. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. “No? Not the way it was for you.”

Minho doesn’t know what that means and says as much, but just as he opens his mouth to ask, Felix waves it away.

“It wasn’t sad,” he clarifies. “It was—what color did you say it was?—green? Alive. Something warm and sometimes we could feel the rain. It was nice.”

Minho doesn’t understand, but he knows that some things are not meant to be understood. This is one of them. Felix is a star and Minho is gray, somehow still alive.

“You look pretty,” he says instead, promptly turning pink when he realizes what he’s said. “Your makeup is sparkly.” Thankfully, Felix doesn’t think too much of it.

His eyes crinkle, scrunching up and letting the gems catch the light again, both of them, three stars that wink at Minho. His hair glistens, pale gold that it is, even under the shadows and suddenly everything is far too bright.

But then he smiles widely, pure silver and Minho thinks there’s more than one way to fall for the stars.

“You’re pretty too,” Felix says immediately, but he isn’t deflecting, not as matter of factly as he tells Minho this. “Thank you.”

Minho smiles slightly through his pink cheeks and lets his hair fall over his ears, hiding how red they are. “Thank you,” he mumbles quietly, taking another sip of his tea, disappointed to find that it’s almost finished.

The taste of lavender lingers for the weeks to come, and even then, he can’t replace the image of the sunlight streaming through the cafe that night.

“Do you know what the prof was talking about with trauma and memory?” The voice is quiet, timid, but Minho mentally startles anyway. He feels disoriented, mind spinning as he turns to the source of the voice, even if his body is steady.

“The part about trauma and memory?”

The other boy flushes, suddenly embarrassed. “Ah, I’m sorry, I thought you were a neuro student ‘cause we were in the same class and I just assumed you knew because you were done with that last test early, sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

Minho thinks of Felix when he tells the other boy he doesn’t mind. Wonders what the universe thinks of this. “I’m specializing in memory,” he admits, after the boy sits down on the curb next to him. “I would hope I understand enough about it.”

The boy nods. “So, you are a neuroscience major?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Among other things.”

He isn’t even sure why he says it. The boy holds onto every word as if it is precious, leaning forward to listen. “Other things?”

“I’m minoring in music production and linguistics.” He stretches out his left leg, wincing at the way the denim rubs against the cuts on his skin, kicking at a rock.

“That’s so cool.”

It’s not, but it reminds Minho of Felix and his sparkly eyes, so he lets it slide. “What are you majoring in?”

“Psychology.” The boy is quick to answer. “I want to become a psychologist. Well, I want to help people process their mental trauma and all that, but I really just want to help them understand what’s going on in their heads. So they can be nice to themselves, you know?”

Minho doesn’t. He is both a hypocrite and a liar in this moment.

“Ah, but I really don’t understand the part about forgetting,” he admits. “That’s why I thought I would ask, but I understand if you’re busy or if you just don’t want to or—”

“I can try and help,” Minho offers quietly. “Honestly, I’m not sure I understand it well enough to explain it, but I understand how it works, I think.”

You, who knows your pain, understands understanding. Seeks the words to explain it.

Perhaps this is what he means when he tells Felix of his affinity for learning languages.

“That’s more than enough, really,” the boy says quickly, like he thinks Minho will change his mind. “Sorry, I went about this all backwards. I’m Hyunjin. Well, Hwang Hyunjin. Ah, but now I sound like James Bond, sorry, I’m just—”

“Hyunjin,” Minho cuts him off, not unkindly. “Lee Minho. I’m a sophomore.”

As strange as those words feel on his lips, that he gets to be a sophomore again when he was so sure it wouldn’t happen, it is the truth. And there is comfort in knowing that.

Hyunjin flushes slightly. “I know. You’re kind of a neuro prodigy to everyone.”

This is news to him. He’s always had his head far beyond the clouds though, so perhaps it is the truth as well. Strangely, this does not bring him comfort.

“I’m sure I’m not what they say,” he admits, bangs falling over his eyes. Hyunjin reaches out easily to tuck it behind his ear, pulling his hand away right after but still brushing against his earring. Minho stares at his hand, watches it retreat.

“That’s not true! You’re amazing, I swear, you’ve corrected the professor at least three times in the past two semesters—not that I’m stalking you! I’m not—I just think it’s really cool.”

“I’m flattered,” Minho says finally. “Even if I think you’re putting a little too much faith in me.”

Hyunjin shrugs. “It’s not my fault if you can’t see it, but seriously, thank you.”

Minho doesn’t know how to respond to this. To someone thanking him for something he’s always been expected to do. “You don’t have to thank me,” he mumbles. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

Hyunjin shrugs again, running a hand through his hair. It looks like an overgrown mullet, but somehow, he pulls it off. “You agreed to, didn’t you?”

There’s a thought.

Minho is still contemplating the mysteries of the human mind and emotions when Felix opens his room door, tugging him in and pushing him onto the single. Felix pulls out a giant hoodie from somewhere, black with a map of the stars on the back. Minho raises an eyebrow, but Felix just sends him into the bathroom.

“Go shower and put on some clean underwear!”

Minho rolls his eyes. “I always wear clean underwear, what do you mean?”

“Don’t bother with the clothes though,” Felix says, deep voice much closer than Minho expects it to be. He jumps slightly, lowering his shirt to cover his thighs instead.

Minho whirls around to find through the door, only to find sunshine in the dinghy bathroom. “Felix!”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing weird,” he says, but the sheer amusement in his voice terrifies Minho. “Do you want to shower together?”

Minho thinks his soul leaves his body. “What?!”

Felix giggles, draping himself over Minho’s back. “Only if you’re comfortable with it. You feel really cold, I don’t want you to get sick or feel cold when you get out of the shower. You’ve been turning the water up too high lately; you’ll get burned.”

That’s an oddly sweet sentiment, even if he isn’t sure how to react to it.

“Okay,” he agrees quietly, thankful that Felix gave him the space to think about it. “It won’t be weird right?”

“We could wear swimsuits if it’ll make you feel better,” Felix offers, but Minho is already sinking to the floor, head in his hands, knees curled to his chest.

“Minho?”

The rush of water as you dive in is extraordinary—not something anyone can understand. When racing, the water isn’t simply by your side or surrounding you, you become one with the water. Each stroke, each kick, each pull—that is the water in you. The very essence of the sport.

It’s so much more than a sport to him and he’s lost it forever.

Felix bends down to sit on the floor. “Minho, can I touch you? You’re shaking.”

Is he? He can’t tell. The water is always so loud when you first dive in, it always drowns everything else out. Still, he nods, reaching out to hold Felix’s hand.

He’s never liked the sunshine in the water, but it’s cold here, all by himself, and he thinks a little sunshine could fix it.

Felix pulls him closer, gently pushes Minho’s legs away from his chest and pulls him into his lap, hand tracing warm patterns down Minho’s spine.

It’s interesting how he doesn’t shiver at the contact but keens at it, pushing himself closer to the warmth.

“How are you so warm?” He pushes his nose against the freckles on Felix’s neck, exhaling slowly when his hands drift to his hair, playing with the messy brown locks. “Mmm, it’s like you’re the sun.”

You’re my midnight sun in this everlasting night, and I can only hope that we never wake to a barren summer, stormless and clear.

Felix giggles, but his voice shakes a little bit. “You’re warm too,” he insists, as he always does. “I think you’re really stressed and you managed to get yourself sick. You’re freezing, Minho.”

He thinks that wouldn’t be so bad. To be frozen if it means melting under this beautiful sun once more.

He has a fever.

Somewhere between talking to Hyunjin and walking home, he has managed to get himself sick. Felix helps him shower, washes his hair for him even though Minho is just the slightest bit taller and he has to stand on his toes to do it.

In another life, the room would smell of chlorine and it would be Seo Changbin and Minho wouldn’t know how to take it without taking too much.

This is better.

Felix swaddles him in a towel, patting him dry and leaving him warmer than he had been in the shower as he helps Minho stand and get into a pair of boxers, pulling the hoodie over him before tugging him to bed. “You deserve to rest, you know.”

Maybe. It doesn’t feel like it, but Minho has grown oddly attached to not sleeping alone these days. He pulls Felix under the sheets with him, draping a leg over his hip and sighing into the warmth.

“Just like the sun.”

˚ ˚ 

.

. ✺ ✹

. ⋆

* . 🎡 . · 

. · .

Minho asks Felix to tell him the names of the stars. Felix tells him there’s too many to remember and that all he needs to know is that names are words and just like all words, they only have meaning if you want them to.

Intent, remember?

This, he can understand, multilinguist that he is. Sometimes there simply aren’t words to describe what you feel and while you may hate it, sometimes it is better to not know.

A nameless pain is a phantom but a known poltergeist will haunt you.

The stars are warmer now, Felix tells him. They shine brighter when those they care for are happier.

Minho wonders if the star that cares for him is dull, a cold hard mass that never shines. He certainly feels like it most days.

_I’m sorry, little star._

Felix is warm. Minho hopes whoever he cares for knows that too.

Felix is warm and Minho thinks that the thought of love might not be so bad anymore. Felix is pink, a shade slightly off from the red that surrounds his mind some nights.

“Can you kiss me?”

He doesn’t know why he says that. The atmosphere, maybe. It’s the mood when it comes to these things, right? And stars know a little something about romance, don’t they?

They know of heartbreak too, you think. Of the stars that watch their counterparts continue to walk without them, to leave them to float in the nothingness that fills the universe.

If love was a ghost, would you still see right through me?

Felix turns on his side to mirror Minho’s position. “Do you want me to?”

Minho purses his lips. “I don’t know, though.”

“I don’t want to do anything you’ll be uncomfortable with,” Felix reminds him gently, hands lifting to his hair to easily comb through it. Minho melts under his fingers, thinks he’s never going to let his hair go.

“‘M not uncomfortable,” he mumbles, pressing his face further into the pillow. “I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone before. I can’t tell if it’s platonic or not and maybe I do want to kiss people or if I just care too much.”

“Caring could never be too much,” Felix murmurs. “You could never be too much.”

Somehow, he always knows exactly what Minho is thinking and exactly what to say.

“I want to try,” he says. “If there’s really anything I’m missing out on.”

Felix drops his hand to Minho’s jaw, free hand pulling his hand to his waist. He feels safe like this, face cupped by Felix’s warm hands. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

Minho nods. “Okay.”

He closes his eyes at the gentle press of lips against his, the pressure disappearing before returning, at a better angle. He leans forward too, returning what he gets.

_Life is a fairy tale._

_Something_ happens.

It isn’t what he expects, but then again, when has he ever been predictable?

Felix pulls away, smiling softly. The sun shines brighter outside.

Summer is almost here.

Hyunjin visits while he’s sick, practically bedridden if you listen to Felix. He’s not, it’s just stress, manifesting itself as a temporary physical ailment.

( Don’t listen to Felix. )

He also swears profusely that he is not a stalker and that he was in the area when his roommate stopped by to tell him that Minho was under the weather.

“I’m obviously not going to ask you to help me with neuro right now either,” Hyunjin drawls, eyeing Minho the blanket sushi burrito. “But you also look pitiful enough that I think I’ll stay and give your roommate a break.”

Roommate? Felix?

Minho hums noncommittally to acknowledge that he’s listening. Hyunjin relaxes a little at that, sitting down next to Minho’s cocoon. He giggles at the way the blankets are swaddled around him, the way Minho can’t move his arms out to push the hood Felix has tied around his head off.

“Anyway. I’m just here to keep you company for a little bit.”

Minho doesn’t question it. He and Hyunjin have talked a few times since their initial meeting, often running into each other in passing, and at some point, they both have enough free time for Minho to explain traumatic memory loss and repressed memories to him.

The irony is not lost on him.

Hyunjin, for all his talk of keeping him company, ends up asking Minho to tell him about the stars, pointing at the constellations he’s been drawing out in his sketchbook. This is after he tries tickling Minho through the blankets, realizing that he would have to unroll Minho, and that this would not result in an ideal outcome for him. Instead, he claims Minho’s left side for himself, leaning back against the window behind them.

Outside, the skies are blue, but only barely so.

“Must be lonely,” he murmurs, watching Minho leaf through his sketchbook, taking in each individual piece of art. He doesn’t seem to be much like other artists, only uncovering his art when he is ready. Hyunjin is unapologetic about the process and is proud of his mistakes. It’s something Minho can’t understand but admires nonetheless.

“Hm?”

Hyunjin shifts a little, tugging Minho’s blanket over his legs, sighing when the heat settles in. “Being a star.”

Is it? Felix says it was lonelier for them than the stars, but perhaps your own loneliness is harder to recognize.

Minho shrugs. “Maybe not. There’s so many of them that the distance might not matter.”

Hyunjin frowns at this. “That’s worse, isn’t it? To know that someone is out there but just barely out of reach.”

Someone, for the stars are alive and their lives brighter than yours, but only because of what they let inside—their own light.

Minho thinks he sees a flash of sunlight in the window, but it is gone before he can even fully turn his head that way. Hyunjin turns his head, settles it on Minho’s shoulder, staring sleepily at his sketchbook. Minho closes it and sets it to the side, but doesn’t get up to put it on the bookshelf next to him.

“If you’re tired, you can get some rest,” he says quietly, but Hyunjin is already asleep. Minho smiles softly, running his fingers through his hair gently, the way he remembers the starlight caressing his own. He reaches for music, and lets the kudoclasm wash over him, sees the events of his life flash forward as the song plays, the events building up with the synthesizers in the background. It ends with a grand finale of a final refrain, filled with the greatest things he will do.

The refrain is short. The song ends all too fast, unfinished in the raw way that emotions often are, even though it fades out.

_To know that someone is out there but just barely out of reach._

He doesn’t ask Felix to kiss him again, but things are different. Felix has always been touchy, but now he’ll comfortably take up space in Minho’s lap, play with his hair easily, and dry his tears when Minho thinks he isn’t looking.

Something about how easily you give love hurts. Don’t you ever worry that it’ll hurt you?

“Why do you keep your room so dark?”

Minho raises an eyebrow, stops typing. “It’s not that dark.” He looks around, realizing that it is, in fact, _that dark._ “When did it get so dark?”

Felix clicks his tongue, taking the laptop from Minho, closing it, and setting it aside. He takes its place in Minho’s lap, draping his arms over his shoulders and waiting for Minho to wrap his arms around his back.

Minho frowns, pulling him closer. “You feel colder. Are you okay?”

Felix giggles, waving it off. “I’m fine. You’re just warm. The warmest person I know, remember?”

Minho nods slowly, letting himself relax. He does feel warmer, admittedly, and much better than he did during his stress induced fever. “Missed you today.”

Felix smiles into his neck, tugging him forward so that Minho is now sprawled over his torso. “Missed you too,” he grins. “Always miss you.”

Minho tilts his head curious, resting his chin on Felix’s chest. The angle is unflattering, but perhaps there is a different kind of beauty in the candidness of raw angles. “I’m right here.”

“Are you sure?”

Minho hums affirmatively, turning his head back to the side, lifting his head up to place a gentle kiss against the constellations on Felix’s cheeks, sliding a hand up to intertwine their fingers together, playing with their joined hands. “It’s always better with you.”

This kind of vulnerable honesty is new, and he hates how young he sounds when he says it. A child when it comes to love, and these words feel new on his tongue. Unfamiliarly bittersweet, a naivety he can never escape.

“Love you,” Felix whispers back easily. Minho closes his eyes. “Love you so so much.” He squeezes them shut, wonders if he closes them hard enough that the outside world will disappear and he can join Felix in the stars.

Felix holds on tighter, like he knows Minho needs it, even if Minho can feel his warmth dwindling.

As the sun sets on winter, spring brings a strange warmth with it, the smell of ashes and the color of smoke and fire.

_You seem pretty far away._

· . . 

✵ . ✷

* * ·

✧ ⋆ . * *

✵ ˚ .

. 🎡 ✹

He forgets. Until the heat is already upon him and he just wants the dark back and wants to sleep in and wake up when it’s cool again.

Summer is a haze that lasts far too long, each day slower than the former, but as it nears its end, Minho realizes he doesn’t remember anything from it. All he has to show that those days even exist are the scars from them.

“You didn’t go home for the summer.”

Hyunjin is acutely observant. Minho can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

“Nope.”

He turns to Minho, tilting his head slightly. His hair has gotten long, near his shoulders at this point, barely wavy and a jet black color.

“Will your parents miss you?”

His mom might. But their relationship is not what he’s thought it to be for all these years, serving as a crutch to help her through her own trauma. He can only hope that she sees the space between them as a sign of healing, and that maybe she’ll be able to find her peace too, rather than taking it as him distancing himself from her. His father is… difficult. He doesn’t think his father will ever love him the way he loves his younger brother, unconditionally and wholeheartedly, but nevertheless, he is his father and there is something between them after all these years of living in the same house.

He doesn’t know if he would call it love. There’s certainly a lack of respect between them and he is old enough now to know that this is father’s doing. That parents are allowed to mess up and their children are allowed to decide their consequences for that.

But they’ve never talked about this.

His brother is harder to determine. Six years between them has always felt like six years too many and his brother never fails to treat him like someone less than the other, even if he’s the younger one. Still, Minho loves his brother, and can’t fault him for being the one that their father loves. He just doesn’t know if he would go as far to say that they’re close.

“Don’t know,” he admits. “Why’d you stay?”

Hyunjin doesn’t push. Minho thinks he doesn’t mind his observant nature so much.

“See, there’s this guy…”

Watching someone fall in love is beautiful in its own way, Minho thinks. Like shooting stars and asteroids that just barely miss each other as they fly by, ricocheting off the sands of time, the spacedust that brushes against your eye.

When Felix tells him he thinks Minho is empathetic, he doesn’t honestly believe him. He doesn’t go out of his way to do anything, and the colors of emotions are often more trouble than they’re worth. He’s given up on kindness in the same way that the universe has given up on him, and it’s liberating, in a way.

“You’re not as mean as you tell yourself you are,” Felix tells him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m not as nice as you think I am either,” Minho retorts, and that’s that.

The hotter the weather gets, the hotter Minho gets. But touching Felix sends a chill down his spine and he worries about what that means.

“Are you giving your warmth to me?” The sun is streaming through his window and, though the curtains are still closed, Felix has opened the blinds today, claiming that the room is starting to feel stale like this.

Felix shakes his head. “Why would I need to do that? You’re already the warmest person I know.”

There it is, that line again. Minho doesn’t understand how he can be warm if he never does anything. He feels more like a leech, with an ever present chill in the tips of his fingers and knuckles and toes.

Around them, the music is a pale orange, a vivid red streaking through it.

Not for the first time, Minho wonders if the colors have a mind of their own, especially since the song has always been green.

“I’m the only person you know,” Minho argues halfheartedly, tugging Felix closer, frowning when he does so easily. “Am I taking my warmth from you?”

Felix stares at him incredulously for this, adorably ruffled with his fluffy hair and golden shoulders. The shimmering design that swirls around each one, a golden sun that sparkles even on the darkest nights, fades slightly, visibly.

The bass echoes in the minimalist room, somehow bouncing off even the rumpled sheets. A tropical beat a light swing.

_If time passes and you leave me, will I be able to laugh again?_

“You have never taken anything from me, Minho,” Felix says, voice deathly quiet, but firm. “What I give is free and of my own will. Your warmth is your own. Your—your heart is your own, and it is kind, okay?”

_The times I don’t even want to think about…_

Why does he sound so sad, Minho wonders, because he knows a little bit about being sad. Why does this sound like goodbye? “You’re too kind,” he muses, hugging Felix tightly, scared that he’ll disappear from his arms. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

_Don’t come closer_

It’s not sad, the song, but perhaps in this moment, you will understand why the colors shift. You are the clarity in the music and I didn’t even know I had been listening through the static of being underwater.

_don’tcomecloser_

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” he admits, pressing his nose to Felix’s hair.

_I hate it, it already hurts_

The stars smell of hope and tranquility, a burning passion that never dies, no matter how cold it grows. A passion he remembers all too well.

_Even just by the thought passing through my head_

Felix smells of chlorine. Minho thinks he couldn’t survive another goodbye.

_It’s too early, this is all too fast._

Watching someone’s heart break is like watching the universe tear itself apart, only to put itself back together backwards, the celestial crumbs spilling out, forgotten into nothingness.

Hyunjin is cool, his cheek pressed against Minho’s shoulder. “Do you think I did something wrong?”

“No,” Minho says immediately, raising a hand to cradle his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong; don’t think that.”

It’s 4 and they’re both tired and Minho can’t sleep and Hyunjin looks like he’s about to cry.

“I think,” Hyunjin starts slowly, shifting around and making himself comfortable in Minho’s lap, even though he’s bigger. “I’m just incapable of being loved.”

How familiar, these words are, and yet, so foreign.

I could love you, Minho thinks immediately. Not the way you want to be loved.

But who decides that, really?

“That’s not true,” Minho finally says, turning Hyunjin around slightly, so that he’s sitting to Minho’s side instead of being pressed against his chest. “The universe is just unkind. You are not.”

Words are strange. These are familiar, a mantra half his own and half of the stars. He hopes it can bring Hyunjin some comfort, nevertheless.

Hyunjin cries and summer finally almost ends. These two events are not related, but Minho thinks that the end of summer will bring some relief for them all.

The gym is slightly less crowded as the weather cools, more students and gym goers alike opting to use the outdoor facilities now that the weather is more bearable and less fire.

“The sun is setting,” Felix murmurs.

Minho nods, tightening his grip on Felix’s hand and hoping that some of his warmth can go back to him. Felix is the sun—he is not meant to be cold.

The sky is an empty canvas, splashed with a haphazardly patchy blue background, deep enough to be a slight indigo in the falling light. Pink streaks the horizon, a gradient that fades into purple all t0o quickly.

The sun looks cool in the light, a far cry from the familiar gold that haunts his nightmares. The glass it reflects patterns off of is seemingly invisible, the patterns dancing on the surface of the water.

Minho can’t breathe, but he remembers when this was healthy. When the strain of his lungs was an accomplishment as the world spun faster and the water churned into a whirlpool behind him.

Felix stares at him, concerned, brows furrowed together worriedly. “Minho?”

“I used to swim,” he says instead, and perhaps it can be as simple as that. After all, he is the one that tied the water and the pool and the chlorine to the softest colors and sweetest sounds—he was the one who attached such a meaning and a passion to something so simple. “One day I drowned.”

Not literally. The brain works too fast, and even otherwise, instincts kick in far too quickly to let that happen. But in his passion…

Minho can’t breathe and he misses when this was a sign of success, when that tingly sensation of breathlessness was punctuated by accomplishments and a sense of pride. He sinks to his knees, watching the water dip and bend with the cooling post-summer wind and thinks of the universe.

In its vast entirety, he still does not know if he would thank the universe for this.

( When it gets hard, it’s easy to pretend he hates the water and regrets his passion. But reality is far more painful than that—and impossible to hide from. )

“You’re still here,” Felix says quietly, sinking down next to him. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

“I’m not,” Minho pushes miserably. Is it the sun that disappears into the water?

The pool is too close for the sun to dip into its waters.

“I wish I wasn’t.” Sometimes, all the time, it’s just a thought. And thoughts can be true too, even if they shouldn’t be.

When he cries, it isn’t for lost races or missed opportunities. This is his kingdom in blue and his coffin at the same time. It is out of pity, for what else could he think of such overwhelmingly intense passion?

“The water is cool,” Felix says, stroking Minho’s hair gently. “You’re too warm.”

And now you think you know what it’s like, to love something so much it hurts. That the passion they praise is your noose and with every tear, you only tighten it.

✵ ✵ · 

· * 

⊹ 

* · ⊹

. . .

✹ · 

🎡 + .

It’s strange how easy it is to laugh. Even at his worst, even when he can’t even think straight and his limbs are too heavy to lift, laughter comes easy. Genuine laughter too, from amusement, most often.

Case in point: he can’t stop laughing at—with?—Hyunjin, who unceremoniously slipped in the bathroom and managed to get glitter all over himself and his bathtub.

“Stop laughing,” he whines, running a hand through his hair and sprinkling the glitter even further around him. “Minho!”

He can’t. It’s so _Hyunjin_ of him to come in here and demand that he get to dress Minho up for some reason so that they can go out, only to trip and fall into the bathtub and pour glitter over himself. “You look so—”

“Do not finish that sentence!” He cries out hysterically, slipping on the glitter as he stands up. “Don’t even think about it.” He almost slips once more, but Minho catches his flailing arms, stabilizing him. “This was supposed to be a fun surprise for you but instead I think I have glitter in my eardrums.” Minho giggles again, ignoring Hyunjin’s pouty scowl.

He does manage to get himself together enough to get as much glitter off himself as possible and help Minho clean up the bathroom though. He’s still pouting as he picks out an outfit for Minho, complaining that his wardrobe of oversized black hoodies and sweatpants, mixed with a single pair of jeans, isn’t good enough for this occasion, even pulling out some of his own clothes.

He settles on an outfit and shoos Minho off to go try it on, fawning over him when he comes out, helping him with his makeup, and selecting his accessories.

Admittedly, it is a bit overwhelming, but unlike before, it doesn’t feel like a bad thing. Hyunjin simply has too bright of a personality to not feel overshadowed by him.

By the time he’s finished, Minho realizes he can’t even recognize himself. Unlike the depersonalization or the disassociation he faces far too often, this feels like looking into the future. Hyunjin, equally dressed up next to him, looks like he could outshine the universe.

Not that he would have to try too hard for that, the light is always dimming and burning away.

Hyunjin drags him out into downtown, pulling him closer than the people push them together. There is something comforting about this kind of feeling small in a big crowd. It doesn’t feel so bad, after all, it’s almost midnight and most people are at home.

They end up on a rooftop looking out at the bay, fairy lights dancing on the edge of the glass railings.

( A glass capsule, at the top of a ferris wheel— )

Hyunjin’s eyes are sparkling, hair blowing slightly in the wind, the residue glitter shimmering too. He smiles softly and Minho wonders if happiness can break your heart too. His eyes crinkle slightly at the edges, and everything else blurs into bokeh in the background.

( A falling star and a flying soul— )

“Happy birthday, Minho.”

You will find that to laugh and to smile are two different things. Laughter is from the small moments in life, the humor within the unordinary. Smiling… Smiles are from a deep rooted happiness, an inexplicable sense of contentedness that floods your soul.

Laughter is easy, but fleeting. Smiling is harder when the happiness never lasts.

The warmth creeps under his skin, an uncomfortable fire that lives his skin prickling. Felix is curled up on the couch, a thin shirt draped on his frame, hanging off his shoulder.

But when he turns to Minho and smiles, everything is okay.

“Happy birthday!” He gets up immediately, wrapping Minho in a hug that’s far too cold for a star. “Did you make a wish yet?”

He thinks he knows what he would wish for, but it seems like the universe is too cruel to grant him that. So he settles for shaking his head and tugging Felix to the kitchen, downing a glass of water and wondering why it tastes so bittersweet.

They curl up on the floor, by the floor to ceiling window in the common area, heads pressed together, as they fall asleep in the sky.

Goodbyes are seldom said when they will mean the most.

He wakes up in November and dreams of the rain, even if it never comes. The days get colder, as does Felix.

“What are you doing?”

Minho holds out a piece of paper. “Can you draw a compass?”

Felix sits down, the oversized hoodie falling over his hands with how big it is. “A compass?”

Minho bites his lip and nods.

The north star: an anchor in the northernmost part of the sky, of this little slice of the universe, and the coldest point at the poles.

Felix’s compass manages to look like a compass, nothing like the perfect designs of artists, but perfect in it’s own imperfect, personal way. His hands are cold when he hands the paper to Minho.

Minho sets the paper aside to pull Felix closer to try and warm him up, terrified of what this new cold means.

The compass has an arrow drawn point to the north and he shouldn’t overanalyze it because compasses always point north. But the paper falls to the side and north still manages to point at Felix, so Minho can’t help it.

_You’re my true north._

He thinks Felix is stunning like this, an otherworldly beauty with his purple and blue hair, a nebulae of a halo. He holds on tighter and thinks that all the love in the world could never be enough.

The north star: the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor. Also the brightest star in the night sky, a guiding beacon.

✹ . ✧ . 

✧ *

✧ · ✺ ✺

✧ ˚ · ˚ 

* . ✧ ✺ .

🎡

He falls apart.

On the floor of his bathroom, a broken razor. Standing under the shower, the lukewarm water stings as it hits his thighs.

Red.

You would think, after all these years of colors and tastes and sounds, that you would know what each one means.

This is not the case.

Red is memories suffocated to survive, a spider lily on a shoulder and the stains in the water.

For the first time since he spiraled, it won’t stop bleeding. The extensive damage to his legs is obvious, even if superficial wounds will heal.

“Min?”

The water is still too warm. He turns the temperature down, shivering at the sudden change and scrubs his hands, tries to ignore the burning heat in his leg.

You are okay, because if you tell yourself that enough, you will have no choice but to believe it.

But he’s crying too hard to realize that there is a difference between the rain and his tears and the cold shower he stands underneath.

Somehow, the water stops. He turns, breath catching as he meets an achingly familiar pair of eyes.

“Hyunjin—”

He smiles softly at Minho, a little pitiful, a little sympathetic. He drapes a towel over his shoulders, hands settling respectfully at his waist as he helps him out of the shower. He pats Minho dry too gently after sitting him on the closed toilet seat, like he’s something fragile that will break if he puts more pressure than that.

Can’t you see I’m already broken?

Hyunjin helps him into a clean pair of underwear, sliding it carefully over the open wounds before taking out a second towel to dry his hair. He doesn’t say anything, leaning back a little to inspect his legs. Minho thinks.

“Can I touch you?”

 _( “Minho, can I touch you? You’re shaking_ — )

Minho only cries harder, hands reach out instinctively to hold onto his thighs, but Hyunjin holds them before he can, cradling them like they could be precious.

Is this what the universe is tormenting him with now? The pain of loss? The stages of grief?

He has no faith in the stars.

“Can I clean your leg and bandage it?” Hyunjin’s voice is soft, a quiet gentle that feels like a refreshing cold patch against feverish skin.

Minho looks down at his legs, chest falling slower as his breaths come more naturally. He still can’t bring himself to speak, so he settles for nodding.

A drop of water trails down his hair, landing on his leg.

He blinks twice. Hyunjin picks the raazor up and throws it away like it’s nothing. Washes his hands like they aren’t stained red too. Picks up an antiseptic wipe from a first aid kit Minho doesn’t think he’s used nearly enough.

It stings, just like Hyunjin warms him, and when it’s over, it’s all too warm. Hyunjin wraps his leg in gauze after he’s sure he’s cleaned it. He throws the wrappers away and washes his hands again, all in a muted silence that leaves Minho anxious, wondering when the other shoe will drop.

Instead, he crouches down in front of Minho again, running a finger over the bandages. He lifts his head up slightly, but before he can make eye contact, Minho leans down, dropping his head to Hyunjin’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” he whispers, voice broken and throat hoarse.

Hyunjin doesn’t ask. “You don’t have to thank someone for doing the bare minimum for you.”

Don’t you?

“Do you want to talk about it? I know I’m not a professional, but you’re—you’re clearly going through something and it’s hurting you and if there’s something I can do to help…”

Minho wonders, not for the first time, if kindness can break your heart. “It’s complicated.”

Hyunjin pressees his lips against his ribcage. “As it should be. It wouldn’t be fair to simplify something that’s taken you this long to talk about. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t—you should mind.”

“That’s not fair to you,” Hyunjin reminds him, gentle as always. “Whatever you need to get out, I’m here to listen to it. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to help but—”

“Just. Just being here,” Minho cuts in, pulling Hyunjin even closer. “That helps. A lot. More than you think.”

Hyunjin pulls away slightly, hands falling back to Minho’s waist when he reaches out, panicking. “Let’s get you somewhere comfortable then, hmm?”

When he’s sure that Minho isn’t cold in just a t-shirt and that he doesn’t want a pair of shorts or anything, he lies down next to Minho, on his side while Minho stares up at the ceiling.

“What’s going on up there, huh?” He whispers, pressing his lips to the crown of Minho’s head, hand still cautiously resting near his ribcage.

The words spill out too easily from there, even when he has been so sure that there aren’t any to describe what’s been going on in his mind.

“—and suddenly, it just stops. Each second blurs into the next—or maybe it lingers too long to be a second. but it never ends. The days drag on, but you can’t remember. you’re laughing, but the happiness never lasts.”

Hyunjin nods knowingly. “It’s fleeting, like the smiles you flash.”

“But it never lasts.”

Hyunjin shifts, turning Minho slightly, still careful with his legs. “So you want it to end. You want time to stop—or maybe it’s the opposite and you just want it to start ticking again. You want to remember, but the memories are gone. And you’re drowning in the darkest place you know.”

Is he that transparent?

“No one can hear what’s happening in your mind,” he evades, because there is far too much truth to admit there. Even if he has been cursing the universe this whole time, he knows that much of this stems from repressed resentment and his own doing.

“Dut just because it’s silent to them, doesn’t mean it’s worth any less. Don’t let go.” Hyunjin is quiet, taking a deep breath before hugging Minho. “At least, not yet.” He pulls away slightly.

His cheeks are wet. Minho doesn’t say anything.

Hyunjin stays.

When Minho wakes up in the morning, he isn’t sweating from the heat of the night, but cool, with Hyunjin attached to him like an octopus. After Minho showers, he helps him change his bandages.

But the best time is when the sun has already set and blue hour isn’t just a figment of your daydream and they forget to close the curtains, Hyunjin with his head on Minho’s shoulder as they both complete their work.

They’re tentative around each other, though Hyunjin is more assertive initially, throwing out all his razors and cleaning the bathroom the next morning before Minho is even awake. After that, he stays quiet, their conversations muffled by the sudden evening chill.

Most times, Hyunjin wakes up before him. It’s inevitable, in that single bed that his long legs would be cramped.

Once in a full moon, Minho wakes up to Hyunjin’s perfect features inches from his own face. He brushes their noses together, almost smiling as Hyunjin crinkles his nose, eyes fluttering open. Neither of them are early today, the clock pushing fifteen hours since it’s last, but the afternoon sun is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, it rains.

The universe throws a fit over his healing, but perhaps it could never understand, romantic that it is, the sadist.

Hyunjin lifts a hand to brush back his hair, settling against the nape of Minho’s neck. Minho, who has never been able to properly make eye contact, somehow manages.

Hyunjin watches him fondly. Wonders if he knows he is doing the same, if Minho will be able to see his own light.

There is no beauty in this pain, but there is beauty in him for overcoming it. A silent internal strength forged of the very fire that burns.

Minho is a little bit like a star too.

_On the ground._

Hyunjin tilts his head slightly, never breaking their eye contact. Minho’s eyes widen, stargazes for the first time since losing his light.

_Everything I need is on the ground._

* ⊹ 

·

* ✷ . 

. . ✷ · 

· * 

. ✵ ˚

. . ✵

🎡

Wind chimes in the rain, a clement reprieve from the sharp, dry cold.

_Gravity—_

Minho traces patterns against the glass, head leaning against the window. His free hand runs through Felix’s hair, warm against the cold strands.

_I can’t deny gravity_

He doesn’t understand the cold as well as he should, but perhaps ignorance really is bliss. He knows that there is only pain to come from this, but if the universe is a sadist, then he must be a masochist to match, no?

_'Cause I keep falling, oh silly me_

Felix shivers, so Minho pulls his closer, slouching a little to pull the star to his chest and hold him close. He wonders why he never notices how small the other is, despite there not being much of a difference in their heights.

_Energy—_

Minho is twenty and he thinks that the world will stop spinning if he gets up. In his little corner of the universe, it doesn’t seem so bad.

_I'm wasting my energy_

The wind chimes twinkle, barely heard over the falling rain. Minho tastes silver and wishes it could always feel so sweet.

_Just striking matches you'll never see_

He looks back down again at _his_ universe, taking in the only constellations he will ever learn the name to, dropping his hand from Felix’s hair to bring some heat to the stars. They must be cold too, lost in the depths of an infinity space.

_Oh, your forces of nature are blurring my focus now_

He’s reminded of Jisung, for the first time in so long, his enthusiasm for life despite his struggles. Wonders how the other is doing. Minho doesn’t particularly care if Jisung remembers him or not. For all his forgotten traumas, he has always been a little too good at remembering, even when everyone else forgets.

_And all these emotions I still haven't figured out_

He’s lost his mirage once before, to a barren desert of numbness. Will he lose the stars too?

_Got to keep them from the surface from you now_

Felix presses closer, shivering. Minho pulls a blanket tighter over him and waits for it to subside, even if he knows what will happen when it does.

_So I push these feelings under till they drown_

The synth rises and falls with a faded pulse, a fast cooling core. The silver suddenly tastes unbearably bitter.

_( drown, drown, drown, drown, drown, drown )_

A flutter of gauzy blue wings, thin as light. A hurricane on the other side of the world.

You'll find that we are all prone to our own violent tendencies—for there is beauty in seeing something strong crumble at your feet, a demise born from your own pain.

This is not that.

“Have you heard of the butterfly effect?”

Hyunjin tentatively brings them a step forward from their hesitant waltz around each other. Minho nods.

“Chaos theory, right?”

“Yeah, but also, the more philosophical side,” he clarifies, waiting for Minho to nod before he continues. “It’s this idea that a hurricane could flap its wings once, only to set into motion a string of events that end up in this violent hurricane at the end of the world.

The end of the world, huh? It _would_ take a hurricane to knock off a ferris wheel, a storm of violence and forgiveness.

“Nothing’s in your control, essentially. It doesn’t matter what you do or how long you agonize over it—it’ll affect your life in some way, in the future. Every choice you’ve made so far leads you to this moment, and every single choice you make will lead you to the next, no matter how much you think about it.”

Minho tilts his head at Hyunjin, looking at him through his eyelashes. “Are you implying that not thinking is the better alternative?”

Hyunjin clicks his tongue, pulling the throw cushion to his chest. “It’s not the ‘better alternative,’ it’s just—things will change even if you stand still.”

Butterflies don’t stop their wings beating in fear of the hurricanes of the future.

“Trust yourself, Minho,” Hyunjin says quietly, trying his best to hold the eye contact that Minho evades. “If you disappeared, just stopped, the universe would notice. Imagine how it would tear without you.”

Would it?

The universe has never cared for him, and it's sad in the distant way that the moon is sad, glowing only in another's light, shining when no one is there to see. But the dreams he has are of places that don't exist and people that are nothing more than memories in his mind and in whose he never once stays,

You could cause your own hurricane, just by existing. Your mind could fracture this fragmented universe.

If only you stay.

Minho dreams in blue, but his words are faded shades of gray and the music burns a bright red, but somewhere in a hurricane borne of a universal butterfly, he loses his green, all these colors swirling away.

_You can stay_

Minho is twenty and alive, if only for a moment more, but he could never take a life .

_The sound of the wind_

A thousand galaxies in time, but you loved the universes in my mind. A hundred nebula in the dark, but you fell for the stars in my heart.

_That would caress us instead of the cold wind_

He can’t promise forever, if only because he can’t believe in it.

Chaos theory indeed. Maybe he’ll stay and wreak havoc with a few hurricanes of his own creation.

* ˚ · * ✵

✫ ✺ 

˚ +

. ˚ 

˚ ✵ . .

. . . . *

🎡

Minho doesn’t believe in goodbyes, but he thinks their superstitions might not be as unfounded as he believes them to be.

Healing is complicated. It takes time, and it takes the right colors.

His mind is always gray, a little bit of nothing, a mostly blank canvas.

Felix is _gold._ Warmth incarnate, Minho can only dream that he never loses his starlight.

Felix is _cold_ and Minho understands that sometimes wordless goodbyes hurt more than the words themselves. Thinks that he would fight the universe for even a minute more, to take his place instead.

But it is not his place to take.

“You seem pretty far away,” Felix murmurs, sitting next to Minho.

“Am I the one who’s far away?”

_You’re already gone_

“I’m right here, silly,” Felix presses his lips to Minho’s shoulder, against the petals of a spider lily. His lips are tinted red when he pulls away, but the ink is not fresh. “I always will be.”

Liar.

But perhaps you are too.

Maybe their closure isn’t that of a single word, but the words left unsaid that will linger between them, the colors in the music that only he can see.

Confessions… aren’t always of romance and amorous love. Admittance is more complicated than that and to reduce it to a type of love he isn’t capable of seems unfair.

To love is to hold on, even when everything screams to let go. To let go, even when everything screams to hold on.

You never thought it made much sense, right?

“You’re my midnight sun, Lixie,” he murmurs softly to Felix, taking in those constellations, brighter against the paper thin fading skin. “I could never be far away from you.”

And for a moment, we are eternal—and the sun was our shooting star, a flash of serendipity. When the moon rises, in my dreams, we will meet again.

· * · ⊹ 

✵ ˚

˚ 

. ✵ 

* ·

* . ·

🎡

A nebula is a direct product of space dust that collects around a dying star, before it’s core cools.

How strange, that there is beauty even until the end.

November 19. 00:00.

Minho loses his grandfather to the stars and his star to the light.

_Learning my limits and I'm okay with it_

He never looks up to the sky again.

_I'm only a second from losing my mind, I can tell_

There’s no point, not when the only light he has ever sought has left him behind.

_This room has a rhythm, so I'm moving with it_

You would think that you would learn, that nothing can ever truly last forever, that the pain is not an in between but a constant, and that the reprieve is the in between. Or perhaps you already know, and the disillusionment is a rude awakening to a harsh reality you have escaped in your daydreams.

_The human condition of spinning like a carousel_

He doesn’t feel real. Nothing does, actually. Time moves strangely and he thinks it’s been hours in this dizzying haze, wading through a murky mind, but the clock tells him that no time has passed at all. He feels cold, suddenly, and thinks of Felix, with his warm eyes, his soft skin, his gentle smile… Felix is warm.

_Minute by minute, I'm checking my vitals_

Felix, who always told him that Minho is the warmest person he has ever known. Felix, who makes Minho feel like there is a future that he can see, without this veil that seems to cover his eyes whenever he tries, dimming even the brightest of colors.

_To see if I'm living or barely surviving this life_

Felix, who is gone, and has left him behind.

_Twisting the spiral, I'll stay here a while_

Minho is twenty and thinks that the stars will never shine, not in this life. The universe is selfish, and what it takes, it does not give.

_The risk of a dream is what's keeping me feeling alive_

And you think you can rewrite the universe, to take from it what it takes from you, simply with the words you have forgotten. Sentences, hidden in the depths of your mind, uncovered by the light of a thousand stars. Or perhaps it was only one.

Minho doesn’t realize he’s standing until he’s staring out of his doorway, looking up at a familiar pair of eyes. He can’t see too clearly, it’s still too rainy for that, but perhaps he feels more like he’s swimming than drowning now.

“Minho?”

He takes a deep breath and falls forward. The universe can wait.

. 

. . 

· 

* · * . 

· · · .

·. ˚ .

🎡

_( “You’re home.”_

_He smiles, stars dancing around him, a halo over a bridge. “Not so sure about that anymore.”_

_A hand extended forward. He takes it, steps onto the pedestal, slightly off its axis._

_A binary star is a star system made up of two stars. Twin stars._

_Felix is one of them. He glances to the side, at the curly blonde hair and dimples in his smile. Perhaps he has missed this too._

_“Would you like to see?”_

_Chan knows him far too well, but he still nods. This is a future, a possibility._

_And it is beautiful._

_The water that once could bring him nothing is a grave he dances over, hands held by another as they run through the rain once more, feet in time with the bass that builds up. Minho laughs easily, the faint humor lingering even after it passes._

Here it all seems fine

_Things will change and the world will fall apart. You will put it back together easily, for the world is nothing in comparison to your own passion and the love you give so easily._

All in my head—

_At the edge of the world, in a space out of time, there is a ferris wheel that glitters a gleaming gold in the watery silver moonlight, hanging off the edge of a cliff._

How could my heaven be sitting so close to my hell?

_It falls faster than your tears, rumors of fears that disappear, a single thorn in the universe’s side. You watch, transfixed, as the wheel tips, each glass capsule shattering as the stardust bonds that hold it together dissolve and it cascades over the edge, never to be seen again._

Life is a fairytale,

_Giddy laughter replaces the fear that holds you back, the silence that would be, as the wheel spirals away and the earth reforms in its place. A single weeping willow takes its place, with leaves of sweet gold and a tantalizing silver, pale gray dew drops beading the tearful branches, but do not be sad, for every beginning can only occur at another’s end._

( tale, tale, tale tale, tale, tale )

_How strange, that the stars reminded him of the warmth, that sickening fever of turmoil within him. How ephemeral, that the warmth of a touch he once craves turns to a cool refreshing touch against flushed skin._

_He will learn that he is his greatest source of warmth, not the stars nor the sun, but the passion that drives his heart. He will learn that he has never protected it, but that is, perhaps, a virtue._

Till I'm broken in pieces

_At the edge of the world, there is nothing, and perhaps that is more than I will ever understand. More than you can ever comprehend, for nothing can truly never exist. You are not nothing. Even if all you do is exist, you are already far more than the universe, in its infinite nothingness._

Bleeding

_The universe is deep indigo, but it bleeds gray into this turbulent night. Felix smiles softly, places a hand on Chan’s forearm. His twin star is silent, eyes dewy in their conjoined starlight._

_“A happy ending?”_

_The music fades, slowly, until all that remains is a single voice, crystal clear in this dark echo chamber._

_Is it? )_

An ending is what you make of it. If the story is not happy, what would an ending that is, mean? If the story is nothing but happy, why would it end in tragedy?

_Life is a fairytale._

Minho smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> if you have made it this far, thank you.  
> and i'm sorry.  
> this is not the end, but perhaps a beginning of my own.  
> 
> 
> _life is a fairytale._


End file.
